


Wounds Surround

by bonehandledknife (ladywinter)



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: F/M, Past Rape/Non-con, implied capable/nux
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3993607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywinter/pseuds/bonehandledknife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Our deepest wounds surround our greatest gifts.”<br/>― Ken Page</p><p> </p><p>Max thinks it’s appropriate that his soulmark is a feeling rather than a name (is insanity instead of a person).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Our deepest wounds

Max thinks it's appropriate that his soulmark is a feeling rather than a name (is insanity instead of a person).

His life has become a series of impressions, senses sharpened, self muted, until all he _is_ has become brutality and rage. He’s tried to craft the anger he's soulbound to into usefulness, to patrol and to protect, but he fails. And his failures lay their corpses next to him at night, drape their gore across him in the morning, and covers his face with their decay in his odd waking moments. Often he doesn't know if he's mad because he's Marked with madness or if the rage is drawn to him like a corpse draws flies.

Max only knows his own name because his madness (his lover) croons it at him like a sharp knife twisting. He runs not because he prefers it but because the death he trails demands it of him like starving children. He thinks they eat him sane. He maybe almost loves them for it (hates them for it). They are his truth in this crazy world.

His soulmark’s on his leg; the bullet hit it almost squarely. The word has become distorted with the scarring. ( _Like the world_ , he thinks. _Like the world._ )

Max makes himself a metal brace, so that he can continue running; but when the sun heats the steel he thinks he can feel the name it covers burn.

( _I burn with fury too_ , he thinks at it.)

—

She can't see her soulmate's name, but neither can anyone else. The only one who had was her mother who tells her, "Hide it, Capable, they'll only use it to ruin you."

Her hair grows in quickly, a tangle of weeds wild and thick like it'd been listening, like blood, like roses, like thorns, and her mother tells her the dusted story of a prized girl in a high tower who leads her love to her by her hair. _What a luxury_ , Capable thinks, to choose to let down her hair. Capable should know luxury, because after her settlement was raided, all she was surrounded by was the sweetness of it thrust upon her, a shell of decaying meat.

She prefers to face Joe always, but especially when he takes her, so there's no chance some unwary part in her hair reveals the name written on her head. The name is hers, like so very little actually is, even if she never knows it or claims its promise because its also her right to choose _not_ to. (It feels like a hollow choice. Angharad tells them that their choices are still strong, but sometimes it doesn't feel enough. She wants to choose something honestly sweet, she wants something gentle; she wants to choose to be gentle, instead of having to be hard.)

The rest of her skin is clear, like her sister-wives, and Immortan Joe revels in the ability to mark them as his.

It is as much for this reason that they all worship Angharad for her courage in marking her own.

—

She has no name, at least none of someone destined to her. She knows this because when she was born, Joe himself came and inspected her thoroughly.

Miss Giddy named her Most Beloved, and so she was by all who looked at her and all who tried to shield her. Her nursemaids requested music for her and it was given; and good books, and food, and every story that they could remember among themselves, and every story that even a scrap of the Wretched could remember. As a little girl she shied from them when she saw the Wretched in passing, but Miss Giddy whispered to her their stories. She wonders what would have happened if she herself was born with poor lungs, a wine-marked face, a soulmarked skin. She wonders this, twelve and with Joe lumbering between her legs, as she mentally traced the image of his skull on his ceiling.

Because it was _his_ ceiling. It was his rooms, his piano, his books. She wants to hurt him but she’s not sure how, he's in everything she sees. (Even her.) There is something wrong with the world; the stories she reads tell her there is a different way, but she doesn't know how to articulate it.

She’s washing her arms in a bowl after he is done with her one day, her hand catching against the meat of her forearms as she rubs it again ( _again_ ). Her nails almost catches, and she thinks, _that was close, I almost scratched his property_.

Angharad blinks. Straightens, staring blindly at a wall. _His property?_

The memory of a line in a book taunts her. ('Careful, he says, you almost scratched _yourself._ ’)

She looks down and scores her nail down her arm. Repeats it until her skin grows red, and bursts apart under the force, bleeding, bright. Angharad feels like she's shocked into her body and she gasps like she'd just awoken.

She thinks, _I am not —_

" _SPLENDID,_ " Immortan Joe roars, tearing into the room, his sons at his wings, "what have you _done._ "

She looks down at her arm, like a triumphant red flag a design of her own making. Her mouth tears her face open in a smile.

"I'm marking your name, Immortan Joe," she replies sweetly, looking up, chin strong, proudly showing him her arm, "Your War Boys mark the skin for you. Wouldn't you like me to show my regard?" She makes her face look especially dumb and vapid.

Joe's sons look at the incomprehensible scratches, then look at each other.

They turn to Joe.

“A—Alright." Joe says, slowly. The sound pulled long, syllables loaded with his own words trapped against him. "Alright then."

Angharad's smile sweetens.

—

Joe tells himself that his soulmark is somewhere in the sores that breaks open his skin, but there's little he can do about this wasteland that tears each of them all open. The world is insane, he knows— and dangerous. He tries so hard to be good to his people, giving them a purpose, feeding and clothing them; it's really tough sometimes, it really is, to be responsible for so many.

He feels proud when he looks at his family, at the strong women he calls his. He makes sure they are happy and gives them everything, everything he does is for them, to keep them safe from the dangerous and the dirty that would hurt them. He chases everyone with dark foul'd skin away from his lands but it's not as if he's blind to the charm of those races, he’s not _terrible;_ he even rescued their daughter from them and made her his wife.

It's no wonder his War Boys worship him.

His new one is a bit shy but he knows how to bring her out of her shell. He'll tell Cheedo how beautiful she is, he'll tell her over and over again and she'll eventually believe him because he is right. His opinion is the most important, why wouldn't she believe him? He spends the entirely of one afternoon following her around telling her how much he’d like to take her until she curled up in his arms and screamed. _She'll get it eventually_ , Joe thinks.

But until then there's always his Angharad, always his favorite. His gorgeous, confident Splendid Angharad. He loves strong women, don't you know? (He loves it most when they're mostly naked and squealing like they hurt.)

It's terrible that he doesn't have a soulmark; but then none of his wives now do. (He’s learned better.) He collected them in from the wilderness and he'll make a safe place for them all. He'll do all the awful things he must for their sake, and for his boys; he has no problems getting his hands dirty.

(He carefully forgets he never had the name of a soul even when his skin was clear. It doesn't really matter that he enjoys getting his hands dirty; everyone has a use. Even him.

 _Especially_ him.)

—

They get their names after their first raid, and while he likes his, he wonders where his counterpart could be. Nuts and bolts, they hold a car together, so who is his bolt?

Slit smacks him upside the head and hisses, "Stop thinking about it and drive us home!" Spittle and blood vents from the cuts on his cheeks; the Organic Mechanic will take a look at it back at the Citadel but they both know that Slit was inches from being historic, and they both mourn a little at how close it was. _To be chrome on your first raid!_

Nux shuts his mouth on a sigh and nods, levering himself behind the wheel. The Mechanic will be busy tonight, to get all their bodies ticking right, especially after everyone's done keying themselves up. Nux knows he'll key onto himself the holy V8 engine block; it's a popular design, drawing the insides on your outsides. Some War Boys prefer to mark themselves more directly of Immortan Joe, his face or his sigil or sometimes his entire body keyed onto their chests or arms or backs.

It's popular especially to key up birthmarks because your first raid is like being born anew; it’s incomprehensible that the random blotches or scribbles of someone else's name might matter in Vahalla. Especially since none of them could read.

Nux secretly likes his soulmark however; its loops and curves reminds him of cylinders and crankcase and the hum of a warm engine (the vaguely remembered hum of somewhere warm and soft and held). The poetry of the lines recalls a blueprint, and he draws the tangle of intake valves into the name’s arms, and when he rubs away the leaks to look at his reflection he thinks,  _it's so shiny._

Slit, holding up the steel plate they were using as mirror, barks laughter and gives a thumbs up.

The Mechanic will fix his leaks, and then he'll get another paint job, and soon it'll just be another raid until he'll be Witnessed.

Nux can't _wait_.

—

She holds him down with stub and shotgun, he's pinned and sliding his eyes towards her marked half-arm and he looks stunned and winded and she tries to shoot but the gun's faulty. She hauls the weapon up to clock him instead but the feral finds energy from somewhere and surges forward and from there there's almost no time to do anything but react until she's face down, breathing sand, gun at her skull.

But he doesn't shoot.

And if she's alive Furiosa knows she has a chance.

She catches up with the War Rig and stares him down. He agrees to bring her along easily enough, glancing at her, twitching, barely verbal; couldn’t even meet her eyes after she gets her arm on, while he steadily refuses the others a ride. But there is a look to the guy's gaze like something familiar and she knows how to break him. Furiosa has seen in the mirror and known what it's like to want to breathe but for the self-created steel-muscle and belts and ties suffocateing all the air from your lungs. You can’t scream with something like that on, and sometimes you need to.

“Do you want that thing off your face?”

It's easy in the end to fall into battle rhythm with him, as if he were the phantom limb she would have had had if Joe not ripped off her arm in rage, post-third-miscarriage. The name of her other soul ripped with it, barely legible now except for the first three letters; Immortan Joe swore off any woman with a mark as he nearly beat her to death with the limb. He tossed both it and her away. (He hates strong women who defy him the most, best loves those who kneel.)

Surviving the wound was a blur, clawing her way to their medic and insisting to him she could still fight and drive.

"Ain't nothin to me,” he'd muttered and seared the stump closed.

Her arm is a bit of a vicious thing, cut short, so Furiosa doesn’t even blink when she catches the man glancing at it and clutching his leg right above his brace. He flinches whenever he does so, like he’s waking from a nightmare or sinking into a nightmare awake. (He looks at her like he can read all of hers and wants to hand her a gun in response.)

“But what if you don’t come back?” she asks, as he trudges towards the Bullet Farmer. (They need help on this journey, and he is reliable, he is _more_ than reliable, he—)

“You keep moving,” he replies. She stops, and understands. If she had been alone out here, she would have had to say that to one of the wives. (But she’s not alone, and he does this for her; then came back to help when he could have left with the Farmer’s guns and supplies and guzzoline. He could have ran away so many times but didn’t.)

She thinks, on the edge of the salt flats, that he deserves help and thanks, at least a full-loaded bike (deserves the option to turn away, and the request that he doesn't). It's excessively loaded with supplies they could’ve used to last them longer than 160 days but Furiosa knew they wouldn’t have come this far without him. He should have a share and a space in their convoy, if he chooses to.

He chose instead to let them go.

Furiosa accepts this with more regret than she was prepared to admit to. But she also accepts that this world is made up of regrets and there’s many more that haunt her daily and deeper. This was nothing in comparison. It shouldn’t feel so large. There were girls and women counting on her leadership.

.

.

.

And then that crazy feral decided to catch up to them again.

"We go back?” They would be outnumbered, outgunned, outflanked. It’s a completely insane idea and her stump itches with it. But then everyone starts speaking with hope and the hope is not breaking them. She knows they won’t move without her approval and Furiosa feels the sandstorm of everyone’s determination at her back.

He offers her his hand forward and she takes it as if it’s a magnetic pull, key into the ignition, humming.

Furiosa couldn’t at any point thereafter regret that decision, even when half the Vuvalini have fallen and Toast was captured and she was stabbed and he was hanging by her slowly unravelling arm and all was looking more and more lost. She remembers that flare of hope in the middle of the salt and it was the brightest thing she'd felt for years, a dozen people around her planning for better things. It’s why she finds in herself a deeper well of strength, of rage, to protect this hope and let it carry her through to meet Immortan Joe face to face. 

Where she proves to them both that he could die.

It's enough for her. She’ll make it enough; they are easing their way towards the Citadel and the women will be safe even if she’s suffocating in her own death. Her hand is warm. (He holds it.) He looks so worried but he doesn’t need to be, they can keep going, and Furiosa wants to tell him this but she can’t get enough air.

“Her lung’s collapsed."

There’s a flurry of movement she could barely track, and then he lets her breathe even though it hurts him. She thinks gratefully, _he is reliable._

_“Take them home."_

She falls unconscious. 

.  
.  
.

"Why did he walk away?" Cheedo asks, peering over their shoulders as they rose higher and higher towards the Citadel dock. "Why are you letting him walk away?"

"He needs to," Capable replies. "We all need to sometimes."

"But, but his name..."

"Even then.” Capable’s jaw is hard. “Sometimes things don’t work out like you think they should."

“But she doesn’t _know_ , how could she, she was— Furiosa, his name is _Max_ ," Cheedo pleaded, "It's _Max_. And—" _and we've seen your arm_ , she doesn't need to say.

 _His name is Max_.  Furiosa breathes in, world fading out a little, arm tingling, the _name_ on her arm tingling. She never expected to find her other soul out here in this wasteland. (She never expected it to matter. Never expected there to be anything left of her soul to match to. Never even crossed her mind.) She wants him to not exist. (She wants him to exist forever.)

He _knew_ , she realizes, he’d known all this time. Every time that he flinched when one of the others called her. Every odd look at her, at her stump (at his name, she knows now); and with the way he clutched his leg, she wonders if she would find her name there. She wonders if he'd wanted to run as much as she does now, from the knowledge and towards the knowledge; she wants to know this truth both sooner and never. 

 _Would it have made a difference_ , she asks herself. And she knew that he knew that there was no time and no space for them. Not then. And not yet. A great surge of both fondness and grief rises in her as she understands completely; he would not, could not, have afforded to place her any differently. Still couldn't.

She knows him like she knows her own arm. They've work to do.

She breathes out and stares at where he disappeared.

“Furiosa—"

She holds her hand up, "He's looking for something."

"Said it himself, everything's right here,” Dag mutters with a crow-tilted head.

"Not yet, it doesn't," she nods at the pillars of the Citadel, “Let's get this sorted first, get you a chance to plant Keepers's seeds."

"But what if he doesn't return?” Toast asks pragmatically. 

Their platform shudders as it hits the dock. It covers her small stumble.

“ 'He said it himself',” she parrots over her shoulder. Then faces the observation room, chin down, shoulders back, "We keep moving."

She spares a glance at the distant fumes of Gastown, at the far off flares of the Bullet Farm. Furiosa knows he has a map and her name, his car is out there and three half-shredded armies are about twelve days out if they go around the mountain. He told her that hope will make her insane if she doesn't fix the broken but there's nothing here for him to fix. Out _there_ though…

She'll trust in him and thinks he’ll return.

And if that makes her a little crazy, well, maybe that just makes them a matched set.


	2. Being Historical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I remember you."
> 
> Max turns and plants his foot behind him, both free of the Citadel's shadow. A hooded man is leaning against the curve of the wall, the roars of the crowd and the water behind them. There's a long cloak obscuring his features.
> 
> "Maybe it was not you, exactly, maybe it was just a story. I keep stories you see." The hood is lifted, the hands that did so are covered in swirling lines. 
> 
> _Words_ , Max realizes.
> 
>  _Names_. Tattoo'd in grey too faded to be soul-marks. The old man must be one of the many-souled. A Storykeeper.

"I remember you."

Max turns and plants his foot behind him, both free of the Citadel's shadow. A hooded man is leaning against the curve of the wall, the roars of the crowd and the water behind them. There's a long cloak obscuring his features.

"Maybe it was not you, exactly, maybe it was just a story. I keep stories you see." The hood is lifted, the hands that did so are covered in swirling lines.

 _Words_ , Max realizes.

 _Names_. Tattoo'd in grey too faded to be soul-marks. He must be one of the many-souled. A Storykeeper. 

"I don't proper have a name for you, really, except 'Road Warrior', One Who Leaves." The old man holds up a hand and on the parchment of his skin, so it was written. "None of the refugees— them groups we get sometimes? None of them say you leave your name with them," he chuckles, "Well, maybe it's someone else then."

He tears his eyes from the word 'Nux' on the man's cheekbone and scans the horizon. The sun is moving, and he should too.

"But there's not many out there who help, and even less who leave afterward." The man gaze probes Max's form, "Do you perhaps drive an Interceptor?"

Max takes a step back, heart pounding.

The man nods, and claps his hands, "Well, you'll be needing this then." He starts patting at the rock beside him.

 _Not rock,_ Max realizes.

The vague shape of a motorcycle forms as dirt cascades off a dirty tarp. Max steps up and helps him tug the sheet off. He hums consideringly, it wasn't the best, but the parts that needs to work does, and the important parts are rust-free. He remembers the other man and looks up.

The wide smile he gets is a shock. It's one that's wide and easy and Max doesn't remember the last time he's seen one so deeply engraved on a face as to leave lines behind it.

"Well, go on then." The Storyteller looks at him intently, "I'm sure you're leaving for a reason."

Max slides his gaze to the side. Doesn't meet the man's eyes as he climbs on the bike. It starts with little coaxing and Max lets the murmur of it fill in his words for him. 

He lifts the kickstand and pauses. 

Grunts over his shoulder, "Your name?"

"Rumpus," the many-souled says easily, like a man used to living protected and whole. 

Max nods a thanks. 

He rides away towards the teeth of the hills, ignoring the itch beneath his brace.

—

Rumpus hums as he watches the motorcycle go.

The name the First History Man had inscribed onto the back of his hand doesn't seem like enough to describe the story he'd just Witnessed. Then again, the one who stands Witness is never encouraged to keep the story to themselves. To Witness fully means leaving the memory to a History.

But this memory isn't complete. 

The old man stares up thoughtfully at the rising lift. He'll have to speak with one of the remaining Herstorians. They might be able to get the rest of the telling from one of the Widows. Too bad Miss Giddy had been taken with the war party to keep record.

Rumpus smiles hopefully into the sky for Miss Giddy, "May your name return to us and your stories reach our ears."

Perhaps she is still somewhere over the hills.

—

There were always stories, speculation, and guesses about the half-souled, and what they'd meant. The names of halves would appear on perhaps 8% of the population, growing less, and only 5% of that fraction ever find each other. But of those who did, there were tales of faster healing, better stamina, slower aging, and greater reflexes the longer the pair were in physical contact.

There were never any research into soulmates.

(Nobody really wondered why. It is what it is.)

—

"What the 'ell is that?" his new partner had asked by their lockers.

Max looked at the guy, steadily, until he started to squirm.

"I mean I know it's yer soulmark but what kind of name's that? Never hear of anyone with that sort of thing, what kinda mother'll do that to her girl?"

"Figure it just means anger," Max muttered, looking down then to at the hollowed spaces around the room. All over the world civil society was collapsing as the shortage of resources increased the number of those left wanting. Looting and stealing, then more murdering as people started to fight back. Attempts to keep peace became increasingly futile as more and more people got desperate. They've lost touch with their state headquarters months ago, and attempts at recruiting more help just left them with betrayal; the recent influx of new blood was only because they've managed to find a couple holdouts in a station two towns over. "Not like we don't have reason."

"Eh, you just be sharing yer lady love with us all then?" he'd laughed.

Max frowned at him.

"Oh shaddup, y'brought it up." The man huffed and checked his cartridges. "Look, 's good that you found yer other half, even if'n' be a feeling insteada body ta fuck. Roll with it."

"I try not to," Max said under his breath. The rage festers in him sometimes and threatens to eat up his worth. He's a cop, not one of the desperate, one of the mindless, clawing at others. He reminded himself of Jessie and Sprog, to keep it all leashed.

"Nah, go with it. Gives us an edge. Just point it at others, eh, and not at my back."

Max shrugged.

He never bothered remembering the guy's name. It was probably for the best as he didn't last a week.

At least there was always Goose to count on. If Max ever goes down, he can always trust the man to look after his family.

—

Governments have always known that the half-souled, even without meeting their soulmate, would always be sturdier on average than their situation would allow.

For thousands of years there had been systemic recruitment of half-souled into military and secret personal forces. Any private research into the nature of the soul-mark had been ruthlessly suppressed, as well as any attempts to make databases of names for the half-souled to find each other. There were speculation that the half-souled were stronger and longer-lived to give them a better chance to find their other selves but it was a difficult thing to test for certain. Most research was heavily monitored because one more test subject means one less person on the field. (The half-souled were always mentally brittle when it came to certain pressures. A soldier can't fight if they're catatonic.)

What is known for sure that when soulmates meet, the both of them became stronger and more difficult to control. _The solution was simple,_ those men in power thought, _thread through the populace a distaste for others, encourage isolation and pride and a love of things, not people._ It shouldn't be a hard truth for people to realize, was the thought, because the only real truth in the world is that people are things.

(When the rate of people being born with soulmarks declined, from 80% to ever less and less, they only tried to spread their message more, and faster. They needed all the resources they could get. _It's the only way to survive_ , they told themselves.)

When the world broke, these same powerful men blamed the world for being so feral.

—

 _'One Who Leaves,'_ the hallucination smiles. _'Road Warrior who leaves death behind him.'_

The words on the many-souled skin grow red, become bleeding, become names that blame him, become pleas for Max's help. He is never there in time.

Angharad walks through the blood, tearing it apart. She glows. She burns.

 _'Why didn't you go back?'_ She asks.

She reaches out for him and Max flinches—

Is thrown from the bike.

Sand scrapes along his face. There's a weight on him. He's being choked. Max explodes— grabbing the wrists of the hands around his neck and yanking down, planting his feet and shoving upwards. The person above him unbalances to the right and Max follows, surging up and rolling them over until the man (it's a man by the smell) is pinned to the ground belly down, arms hauled up and twisted behind his back.

Oh. Not a man.

A War Boy, an old one by the looks of the wrinkles on the head and the size of those tumors.

"That bike's not yours," the War Boy spits, struggling. "If you've harmed theHistory, all War will bay for your head! We'll kill you! _Kill you!_ We'll tear you _apart!_ "

The painted body heaves upward, raging, while Max just holds firm, anchoring himself center on the spine. He feels perplexed however, and hums his confusion.

"Y'mean Rumpus?"

The Boy stops. Pants a little into the sand and tilts his head to one side. "You know his name?"

Max shrugs and lets the motion telegraph into the grip he has around the guy's wrists.

"Told it to me. Lent his bike." It's not like Max is planning on keeping the thing, he needs to find his car. Belatedly he realizes that he probably should have told the old man that. Getting a move on seemed more important at the time.

"Lies," the crooked white mouth opens and spits. "The bike is for his use only, we gave it to him. I would know it anywhere."

"Eh?" Max asks, blinking.

"The History needs a way to run."

 _To keep safe_ , Max hears.

The War Boy croaks out, viciously, "He keeps the Witnessing. Even if you kill me, there's not one War Boy in _leagues_ you'd be safe from. You'll be hunted day and night and we'll tear your skin off for _parchment_." The painted man starts thrashing again.

Max hums, thinking, leans his weight on both wings of shoulder-blades, kneecaps crunching against muscles and tumors, and levers the arms up higher to keep the Boy still.

Asks, "What does he call you?"

"What does it matter, feral—?!"

The fighting increases. Max jams his foot into a painted thigh and it spasms back under his control.

"He calls me 'Road Warrior'."

Immediate stillness.

"I'm looking for my Interceptor."

The War Boy cranes his head backwards in shock.

They stare at each other.

Max, nods, continues, "Joe is dead."

 _Shhhh_ murmurs the winds and sand. He thinks the eyes must be wide beneath the goggles, the forehead's wrinkled.

"...Furiosa?" Her name isn't spat out. It's a whisper. There's maybe fear there, and no small amount of respect.

So Max replies, "Citadel."

The greased head drops down. There's a huff.

He tch's, "Of all the Imperators... 'course it's her." There's a bit of a crooked smile on that crooked mouth, a rueful laugh.

Max measures him, and then gets up. He untwists the War Boy's arm and uses it to leverage him standing. He's given a slow blink as Max pats him awkwardly on the shoulder. _Seems a bit thin,_ Max muses, _and banged up_. But nothing was actively bleeding, plugged up by white chalk was it were, not even the large face wound or the bullet holes. And the Boy could stand without assistance.

"Think she needs more hands?" The goggled eyes measures him in return, dusting sand off his chest.

Max is already moving towards the bike. "Can't hurt," Max replies. He lifts the motorcycle from the dirt and looks it over, checking for debris and damage. _Seems okay_.

"Well give me a ride to the Citadel then," the War Boy protests, trotting up as he swings onto the bike. Max scoots forward and looks at the seat behind him significantly.

The Boy clambers on. Nodding, "Name's Ace."

Max grunts and swings them back onto the road.

"Hey! Citadel's that way!"

"Hmgg, doing you one better." Max says. Trusts.

"Huh?"

"Y'can drive?"

As the disbelieving hoot rings out across the sand, Max thinks that there's probably scavengers swarming the wrecks already. If this Ace lasts, if the guns Max will give him is never pointed back at him, Max will measure the War Boy again. 

Maybe there's more than one Nux underneath the death-painted skin. 

And if there's one underneath this Boy, he'll send him back to her with a war machine. _Seems like something she could put to use._

_Yup._

(the thought is a soothing one and he doesn't much examine why)

There's golden laughter in the distance, but it's easy to ignore when Max's got a War Boy yammering about salvage in his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I think Ace was the name of the War Boy who keeps speaking to Furiosa in the beginning? Let me know if it's something else!  
> *PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THE TENSES DON'T MATCH, or like, get in contact with me if you want to help beta...  
> *For that matter if something like spelling seems off or something doesn't make sense please let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> *Changed the title as I got increasingly skeeved by John Green  
> *Angharad means ‘much loved one’  
> *Nux is latin for Nuts  
> *no seriously I watched the movie the last couple times with this story in my head and omfg I need to hurt someone else with it.  
> *[tumblr](http://for-the-other-shoe.tumblr.com/)


End file.
